ST. PETERSBURG, Fla – Lets rewind back to back to August 18 of last year. NTT IndyCar Series rookie Robert Wickens was exceeding everyone’s expectations of him. He’s never raced in these cars before, let alone seen most of the tracks. Heading into the 14th of the 17 races of the 2018 season, Wickens was slated to start sixth in the ABC Supply 500 at the Pocono Raceway.

The Canadian driver came into the race on the 2.5-mile track on the heels of four straight top five finishes including a runner-up in the race prior at Mid-Ohio. If you go all the way back to April of that year, Wickens had nine top 10 results, seven of which in the top six, in his last 10 starts.

He won Rookie of the Year after his ninth place finish in the Indy 500. He earned the pole in his very first Indy Car race on the very same streets of St. Pete that we sit here today. But, unfortunately, as we sit here a full 12 months later, Wickens isn’t behind the wheel of one of these 24 cars circling the 1.8-mile Florida street circuit this weekend, he’s in a wheelchair.

Wickens, was severely injured in a frightening crash on Lap 6 of that race at Pocono on Aug. 19. The accident left him a paraplegic among other injuries.

At this point, Wickens is lucky to have survived such a frightening accident. One couldn’t blame him if he never wanted to step foot in a race car again. But, that’s not how racers are wired. Wickens, has two goals in his mind still – to be able to walk and to drive an Indy Car again.

“I’m doing well,” said Wickens. “Really I am. From my front, I’m getting some stuff back, getting better each day. A long road. You feel like you’re on that road trip, it’s the 100-mile road that’s a straight line the entire time without any scenery, and you’re just working as hard as you can to get to the end.

“We’re getting there. One step at a time. It’s basically all I can say, we’re making progress. The thing with a spinal injury is you never know when that day comes where you won’t progress any more. I think right now we’re trying to utilize every day we can to get as healthy as I can.

“There’s obviously good days and bad days. Being back at a racetrack makes everything feel a whole lot better.”

Wickens, says that in order to accomplish those goals, it’s going to take a lot of hardwork, so much work, his doctors are saying that he needs to ease into it, not to go as hard as he’s been.

“Honestly, the spinal cord injury, every single person is different,” Wickens continued. “I’m working my butt off doing everything I can because my whole philosophy in life is the harder you work, the better results you’ll get. Make sure you’re the hardest working guy out there and you won’t be beat. That’s been my philosophy from day one of my entire life, how my parents brought me up. That’s my approach today.

“I don’t know if it’s right or wrong. There could be a person beside me with the same spinal cord injury eating fast food and sitting in their hospital bed all day, and they might walk sooner than me.

“I think all we can say, the doctors know I’m working too hard, they’re telling me to rest. On the same token, they’re kind of telling me to keep doing what I’m doing because it’s working. It’s kind of that fine balance of I am doing four to six hours a day six days a week. It’s tough. I enjoy my day off on Sunday.

“Besides that, I mean, there’s no real reason I’m getting the results I’m getting, or if I did more or less it would change the results. No one really knows.”

Wickens is encouraged with how much progress he’s made so far. He said that the doctors told him they wouldn’t see the biggest results until the 6-9 month post accident range. He says we’re at the very early days of that time frame and just look at how much progress he’s already made from last August up until now.

“I think they’ve been more, like, sexy steps,” Wickens said on it. “Getting the first muscle flick back in October, whenever that was, was huge, right? But it’s just a little muscle flick. You don’t really notice anything.

“Then as I was getting a little better, now that I’m getting up on my feet, I think it’s putting into perspective, Oh, my God, he’s standing, then taking steps, kind of getting better.

“The big thing for me is right now they always told me kind of the six to nine months or the six to 12 month frame is where you’ll see the most progression. I’m kind of right at the beginning of that. Hopefully I didn’t peak too soon. Hopefully I’m still in that prime spot.

“We’re just a little bit over six months post-injury. I am getting a lot of improvement from week-to-week. I don’t think it’s really been escalating. I think it’s been pretty linear. I’ll take the linear progression over one that kind of plateaus and goes up quickly then plateaus again.

“Every week we’re making small improvements. (fiancée) Karli (Woods) and I are documenting everything I can do at the start of each month. It’s been remarkable to read back to see what I was doing February 1st to March 1st, January 1st. Every month it’s a pretty consistent chunk of new things.”

Why Would He Want To Race Again

“The goal is to get back into an Indy car. We won’t know till I try it to see if it’s a reality. Apart from that, I mean, there’s been so many remarkable drivers that have succeeded with hand controls in motorsports that it makes me believe that regardless of how my progression goes, I will be in a racecar again. Just a matter of which car. The dream is an Indy car.

“I know the team has been very outspoken that they’ll always have a car for me when I can race. I think there’s also rules and regulations that we have to abide to. I don’t know how many modifications we can make, et cetera. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there.

“The second question, why. It’s all I know. I mean, that’s the biggest thing. From such a young age, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I told my parents when I was like nine or ten that I want to be a racecar driver. They laughed at me and told me that night in bed, Our kid wants to be a racecar driver. Like unachievable thing I wanted to do. I was telling them I want to be the first man to Mars back in the late ’90s. I don’t know. I was young.

“It’s really all I know. Everyone told me early on, if you can’t race again, you’re still going to do something great with your life. I’m a hard worker. I know I’m going to land on my feet somewhere. I wasn’t happy with that answer. Like, I don’t want a nine-to-five job hustling somewhere new. I want to hustle as a racecar driver. Even if I had to learn something new, like hand controls, I know it’s something I’ll work hard with.

“There’s Billy Whizz, who is doing a great job with hand controls, Alex Zanardi, the guy to get back into motorsports post-injury. When I look at what he did in Daytona this year, when I look at what he did in DTM last year, as a racer who raced in DTM for so long, great he got a top 10 without even testing.

“Anything is possible. I know I’m a hard worker, analytical. I think I could get on top of hand controls. My only fear is that I always wanted to get back into racing as I left off, on the same level that I left off. I don’t want to be just a driver in the field. I want to be one competing to win the podiums like I was when I went out. That’s kind of the main thing for me.”

Fan Support

Wickens sees your posts. He knows there’s going to be bad days through this process. The reason he knows? He’s experienced it. The posts keep him motivated and going.

“It’s been amazing. I was expecting a lot of support, but it’s already kind of gone way out of what I expected it would be. I mean, heading to the pit lane for the first session, I thought the fans would kind of be more focused on the racecars, like I would have been when I was a fan attending a race.

“All they seemed to care about was kind of me. Everyone was cheering my name. It’s really cool to see team personnel from other teams just saying it’s great to see me. People, never even seen them before. Competitor team uniforms, all being really supportive. It goes to show how great the INDYCAR community is, how close it is, but then the fans are just fantastic, as well. Everyone is just giving me such an outpour of support. It’s been fantastic.

“It’s been a motivation piece for me. On those days where I’m just not having the best day in rehab, you feel like you don’t really want to put in the final three hours of your day, but then you just think about the long-term goal of me trying to get back into an Indy car. It’s pretty easy to find that motivation again.”